FOLKWAYS!

 All of a sudden I found myself thinking sociologically when I was in math class. Earlier this week we learned about folkways;we actually have a project dealing with folkways. I was in math class and there instead of having rows we have groups of fours. Basically like the sociology classroom. This gives me a chance to people watch. In my table there are two boys and two girls.I was observing one of the boys who sits at my table ( who I will refer to as Billy). Billy was taking notes and all of a sudden he reaches in and picks his nose. He flicks whatever it was he got out to the ground. This was really gross to watch and it surprised me that he did it so calmly. He definitely broke a folkway . He continued taking notes just as he was before. He saw that I was watching him, and that didn't seem to bother him the least bit.To make matters worst this wasn't the first time I had seen him do this. It is strange to me that he was able to do this like nothing. I for one couldn't do that, and if I did people would view me differently because I'm a girl.  

The definition of a folkway is :" a norm that describes socially acceptable behaviors, but does not have great moral significance attached to it. Billy by picking his nose in public broke a norm. However the idea that different people are more likely to brake folkways than others came to me. I think that also like I mentioned different people breaking the same folkway cause different reactions. Billy is a boy and even though he broke a folkway, he is viewed a lot different than what I would be viewed as if I broke the same folkway.I also think that society as a whole has basic norms , and individuals may have different ideas of what they should be,so they are more likely to break these"basic norms".Not everyone follows what is expected from society like Billy. I'm really excited to break a folkway and see the different looks i get from people. I won't do anything gross like Billy did, but something a little more funny. I talk to Billy everyday and he sees this a normal thing. He said, "everyone does it." Breaking a folkway isn't an easy thing but we all probably have done it through out our lives.